Monday, April 11, 2011

Storyboard To Layout

Here are a handful of storyboard panels from "Wilderness Adventure", one of the firs Ren and Stimpy stories written. The cartoon was rejected 3 times in a row by hippie ladies who hate Republican men.people ask me sometimes what the difference is between storyboards and layouts. These few storyboard panels turned into 34 layout poses.

Here are the first few.Layouts are where I tighten up the poses and break down all the acting.You can't do this with the current system of drawing tight tiny storyboards and sending them overseas to animate without layouts.

It looks to me like the storyboards were done in the 90s, and the layouts were done circa "Adult Party Cartoon". Stimpy has the 3 Mickey Mouse tails on his head and some look like they've been drawn by Nick Cross.

john, are you KIDDING?!! Of COURSE we wanna see the rest! Give us a story outline! These are the loosest, rubberiest drawings of George I've ever seen - heck, that ALONE makes me want to see where this goes next...

It always seemed pretty evident to me what the difference between storyboards and layouts was. The storyboards are more like a preliminary sketch, and layouts are closer to a direct guide to how the final scene is composed.

I'm guessing the number of panels increases because more of the key poses are created in the layout stage?

Are things established in the storyboards, like "body #5" carrying over through multiple facial expressions left for later stages, or is the same body drawn in in all of them?

Wow, those are some amazing drawings. So the layouts were done by you?

I wish some of this stuff could be made into cartoons. Can't you independently produce some cartoon dvds and self distribute them? Does Nickelodeon or Viacom have to be involved to get any new Ren and Stimpy stuff made?? More George Liquor episodes would be the best!

I would absolutely love to see the rest of these. This is completely relevant to what I'm currently learning and I'm very interested in seeing exactly how to make the transition from storyboard to layouts.

"The cartoon was rejected 3 times in a row by hippie ladies who hate Republican men."

Now based on your experiences, what exactly made them "hippie ladies who hate Republican men" when they could be Republicans themselves simply using cautious business approaches whether the practices may be anti-Art or not?

Yeah, absolutely, I'd love to see more. Out of the entire animation process, the part that interests me most is taking the rough, energetic sketches from storyboards and trying to capture that in a much tighter design.

Completely oftopic but John, I was wondering, what is your opinion about the whole 3D movie hype? (with the glasses). I've the feeling it's something the industry wants, but the consumer doesn't really care about. I'm unable to see the (what the industry says) 3D awesomeness, because one of my eyes is almost blind, so I don't care about 3D at all. Only thing I'm pissed about is that I have to watch movies in theater with stupid glasses on my nose and pay extra for something I can't even see :/.

"they were definitely not Republican women (almost an oxymoron anyway)

and certainly not business oriented"

So I take it that they were simply there to punch the clock everyday, and were not as goal-oriented as you. I can see that type of management reflects the output of mostly mediocre cartoons being produced. That's all I wanted to know.

Would you say John Lennon and/or Jimi Hendrix were exceptions to your hippie rule even though they were hippies?

Don't get me wrong, your cartoons are among my favorites and there are very few good cartoonists from any era that stand out to me.

They might have looked like Hippies but they actually produced things. I doubt they would have stayed Hippies if they had lived to see what they wrought.

The Nick Hippie ladies did care about the product - at least in the first year. They just personally despised manly men and thought I was always promoting them in the cartoons - even though I was making fun of them while honoring them at the same time.

Harmke:

I haven't seen any of the 3d animated movies. I'm not against using 3d, if they would use it creatively, which I imagine is rare since even the 2d elements are extremely uninspired.

Personally, I don't think that it's right that they suppress any form of creativity whether it be humanity or whatever else, over their egotism.

"I'm not against using 3d, if they would use it creatively, which I imagine is rare since even the 2d elements are extremely uninspired."

Forgive me for taking your answer to Harmke, but do you think that the newer 3D animation produced for Gorillaz (e.g. "Stylo") is creative, and would a different culture contribute Jamie Hewlett's creative output as opposed to the American "Hippie system"?